New Benchmarking tool to help accountants and their clients

A new tool has been introduced by IRIS Software that will make it easy for practices to provide clients with more detailed, relevant and accurate analysis and advice on their business' performance by instantly benchmarking them against others in the sector.

This new added value service sits perfectly with the more traditional compliance services, such as the production and audit of annual accounts, and paves the way for additional consulting work as accountants use the benchmarking findings to help clients to develop plans to improve the key areas of their business.

'IRIS Benchmarking (powered by AVN)' has been developed in association with the AVN Network of Accountants, one of the largest independent networks in the UK.

The web based tool uses data held by the IRIS Single Central Database combined with high quality data entered by UK accountants in respect of 11,000 of their typical owner managed business clients and prospects. Covering both incorporated and unincorporated businesses, the software allows practitioners to produce informative benchmarking reports instantly. Each business can be compared to around 100 metrics across 19 key areas, including: productivity, profitability, sales effectiveness, asset management, leverage and return on investment.

The practice has the option of producing a simple one page report or more detailed versions of 5-25 pages. Each report is produced by the software in a ready to deliver format - complete with colour graphs, intelligent commentary, recommendations and sensitivity calculations showing, for example, the impact on profits and cashflow of improving performance to match that of the upper quartile in the industry.

'IRIS Benchmarking (powered by AVN)' will import the client's figures automatically from the IRIS integrated database. The user just clicks on the 'IRIS' button to effect the import. The Benchmarking tool then compares the figures with other appropriate businesses in the same sector and produces a wide range of reports that compare the client's business with others.

Steve Pipe, founder of AVN commented "Benchmarking provides accountants with a very profitable new revenue opportunity and it is something that both the profession and clients have been crying out for, for years. Thanks to the integration with IRIS, the reports can be produced instantly and they represent the perfect opportunity to start a different kind of dialogue with clients about how the business could do better. This, in turn, opens the door to further consultancy and other 'special' work."